Existing in the Sphere of My Own Reflection

Storm clouds rise over mountains of steel. 

Hopeless, mechanized, exacerbated,

We refuse to flee the temptation to be exactly what they want us to be.

Faith garnered nothing but a lack of self respect,

And with no foundation, watch as we fall down. 

Death was never intended to be the standard. 

Death was never intended to be an escape. 

Theology is idolatry when our focus shifts to a mirror. 

Our eyes, captivated, ever staring. 

Endless questions create in me the need to be what they want me to be.

Hopes dashed on the altar of myself. 

And with no foundation, watch as I hit the ground. 

Pride was never intended to be the standard. 

Pride was never intended to be an escape. 

Who am I, the adage goes. 

Who is God, the adage goes.

Who are we, the adage goes,

What is this, standing silently in the back rows.

But holiness, you cry through clenched teeth,

holiness, not mine to live. 

God's holiness creates in me a desire to live above their image of me. 

My hope restored in light of his Truth. 

Jesus Christ, the only truth that picks me up off the ground.

Holiness was intended to be the standard.

Not mine. His.

Holiness was never intended to be an expression of the person they all wanted you to be. 

Shatter me.

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"What a bittersweet symphony life is, but I wouldn't have it any other way."-ABR. 

"My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such a violent reaction against it?... Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if i did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus, in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never have known it was dark. Dark would be without meaning."--C.S. Lewis

Break:Bind (Along Came a King)

"So do not fear, for I am with you;
   do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
   I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

                                               --Isaiah 41:10

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Don't minimize my God. 

Don't minimize my God. 

Don't minimize my voice. 

Or, please...please do.

Minimize me if you want. 

On second, thought...don't. 

But...but...no. Rip me down to nothing, sweetest surrender. 

But, please don't minimize the One who breathes life through the "pain" I face. 

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Dear Fury,

Relentless, blazing fury seared by the blinding heat of a passion I've been too afraid to embrace. 

You bleed me dry, old friend. Sucking the life out of me. Don't forget the one who breathes that life. 

Don't forget him, because he's coming for you. 

He's coming for you, and he's gonna hold on with the tenacity of your own grimy claws. I don't know what it is, friend. I truly don't...but it's like a mirror. Like his eyes reflect all the terrible things you are.  

That one time (the one in the aisle in that church), surrounded by a thousand crying teenagers making promises to a God who they weren't even convinced existed because everyone was watching, I looked into those eyes and I saw myself with boulders hanging from my neck and rusty chains binding me to myself. 

Oh Fury, can't you see? Can't you understand? I don't want you here anymore. The last time I let you have your way with me, you took it all. You reduced me to a puddle whose reflection only showed a dying man with a boulder around his neck, wrapped in rusty chains. 

You've infected me, dear friend, with a virus that preys on the ones I'm trying to help. My ministry's a tragedy if I give you control. Fury, your soul is as black as mine...and if there wasn't a brilliant illumination in this chasm of myself, I'd look more like you do. 

I thank God I don't. 

But that doesn't stop you from trying to pollute my speech and my attitude. You're rearing your ugly head like the cancer that just won't give up.

Don't you see? I want to be a man of integrity and I can't do that with you here. Please, get out now. Now, while there's still time. I told you he's coming, but you wouldn't believe me. Now I guess you'll see how redemption is good for me but terrible for you. 

Regretfully yours (but not for long,)

Stephen. 

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Why am I a slave to what kills me?

Why do I keep in my grasp what consumes me?

Rage? Righteous indignation?

Most days I have reasons to be angry, to have my heart break over the present situations. God has given me a tenacious personality for a reason. Most days, I see the injustices in the world and the problems within my own community and I wish I could take them all on me. But I'm a long way away from perfect, and the weight of those things would kill me and bring the rest of them down, too. I couldn't do it. So why do I worry? 

I was talking to a good friend last night who reminded me that I can't fix everything. That I can pray and meditate on God's will. That I can give it all up to the One who keeps us from falling. That I can let go of my selfish ambition to fix the world and put it in the only hands that can do something about it. 

"Do not be anxious about anything,

but in everything, by prayer and petition,

with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."

                                             -Philippians 4:6 

And that's it. The only thing I can do. Because I know that when I worry about whatever problems I or others around me may have...I know that that worry soon turns into anxiety, and that anxiety builds and builds and builds and builds and it becomes anger. Soon that anger turns into a pity party, and, in the end...my old friend Fury materializes because I am livid that I can't fix the worlds problems. It's never really that I am angry due to the situation, but I become furious at myself for not being able to do anything about it. It's ridiculously nonsensical. It's irrational. It is my irrational fear. 

A long time ago, Rebekah Stanford asked me what my biggest irrational fear was. I sat there with the dopiest smile my freshman self could muster, but my mind couldn't formulate any ideas. I didn't know. At all. Now I do. I know that my biggest irrational fear is my own fury. He's a pesky little critter that only comes when I am crippled by fear of inadequacy. Because I still feel like I have something to prove to a mass of people who barely know me...and worse still, to the handful of people who actually do. 

I know that there is no fear in love...because perfect love drives out fear. Drives it out like that stampede in the Lion King where Mufasa died. the perfect love of the Father chases Fear and Fury out and tramples the remnants, because it is the most intense sort of love possible. One that transcends the abstract and looks like Jesus dying a bloody death so that fear has no place in my heart...because I know who I'm living for. Something real. Something gritty. Something that exists not to make me a cheery person but to purify me from unrighteousness, from the grasp of Fury and from the cage of Fear that I've built around myself to prevent me from ever having to step outside of my self-driven anxieties. God is so unbendingly good. 

Holy Spirit, 

Trample my fear.

Calm my anxious heart,

and let me rest in the Father's. 

May I be bold and exist to serve the One who died for all. 

May I exist to not only talk about love,

But to experience it.

Empty me, Holy One. 

Empty me and let me breathe life, 

As You have breathed life into me. 

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Build Your Kingdom As Mine Crumbles

"Build Your kingdom as mine crumbles."


It's a song lyric from Over the Ocean, this folksy rock band that I can't stop playing. It's words like that that cut me. Deep.


I've been living for so long in pursuit of myself. Consistently, I fall into the trap of assuming that, since I'm doing something for God, I am in some way good. That is the most enormous, destructive lie that I could ever tell myself.


There is nothing good in me. There is nothing good in me. There is nothing good in me. There is nothing good in me. There is nothing good in me but Christ.


And that's it.
But I can't seem to figure that out.
Always...people annoy me with their pride and then I think it's okay to turn around and judge them for their arrogance, totally ignoring the seeds of arrogance surfacing in my own life. If I am hurt, it's automatically someone else's fault.


My heart is not pure, I am riddled with self delusion and an overwhelming tendency to congratulate myself on a job "well done."


God, make me small.
I want  need your grace in my life to act as a needle to shut down my inflated head.
Humility has become an abstract word, much like love, in my life.
One that I strive for but run right past because of foggy ambiguity. 
What does it mean?
Oh, Jesus, what can you teach me about how to humble, about how to be pure? 
Like a child. Like a child. That's what you want.
My heart is willing, Adonai. I want to be pure, I want my actions reflect the Light that fills my lungs. 
I want to be good.
I want to be good. 
Make me small, sweet Jesus. 
I don't want to live in pursuit of myself anymore. 
Not unconsciously, not in my awareness.
I am ridiculously and hopelessly lost and tangled up.
My heart withers without you. 
God, build Your kingdom. Knock mine down with a wrecking ball.
Fill me with Your spirit and help me forget myself. 
Amen. 

Here is a freewrite/prayer that will only make sense to me with time.

Dear God,
Why don't I slow down?
Meditate on your peace and lovingkindness. 
I pray that love is more than just an abstract word to me. 
That it's not what I use to feel all warm and fuzzy inside,
Or something that I flippantly say to express the inexpressible things that make the world keep spinning.
I pray that you mold my life to be about people. About using every bit of the compassion you've put inside this aching chest to pour out over the needy, the destitute. 
I believe Your Word. I believe it with every fiber of my being. And while that's not a popular stance here in the academic world, while it's much more attractive to only believe the parts of the Bible that I like, and subscribe to the image of God that I like, and rationalize it with endless theological discourses.
God, I want to grow to appreciate You for you. In your love, in your anger, in your grace, and in your wrath. Don't let me forget that my emotions cannot be made to contain the unbending truth of who you are. My whims cannot pick the attributes that define such an amazing, larger than life Savior. May I cling to You with everything that I am, and not let words like liberal or conservative, Christian or Muslim, pacifist or just war activist...(or backwoods redneck, for that matter.) You have given me my everything...bend my will to yours. Let my preconceptions die in the face of a furious passion that words can't adequately capture. If this world is a stage, let me be praying for its salvation in the audience, lest I be tempted to join the parade of the desperate and the loneliest. 
Holy God, transform us to look more like you. Don't let me cripple myself under the weight of my own arrogance, or let my good deeds get the better of me. Don't let academics choke my faith, and don't let the opinions of others shape what I am passionate about. Please, God...please take hold of my trembling hands. To be perfectly honest, I am scared to death. Once again, you wrecked my life. You took everything I once held sacred and showed it to me from a different angle. You told me in a loud voice that I could no longer be passive, no longer deal in the abstracts because they make me feel good and smart, or bother keeping a record of all the good things I've done because they cannot save me. Yahweh, If I do good, let me do good because you are the only good thing in me. Shatter my pride like you once shattered my tibia and fibula. Like broken bones, let me remember the pain of my arrogance and let it hurt every time I take a step on a rainy day. Take from me all I took from you, and may I never forget that you are the Giver. 
God, I'm tired of my secrets. If they're worth hiding, then its not worth living. So let me go in faith and be transparent, exposed to the light because ugly lust can't survive but in the dark. Refine my heart and let me live for you. Don't let me cling to what I know kills me. 


Anger 
Pride
Lust
Violence
Impatience
Laziness 


God, tame this bonfire that rests behind my teeth. Rip it out and replace it with Your passionate words of love. Hopelessness pervades me, but remind me that I need to rediscover my first love if I'm ever gonna discover the compassion You have for your Bride. I'm fumbling, and it's humbling to be in Your presence. Let me do that more often. Consume me, great redeemeer. God, free me from my self obsession so that I may serve you without shame. 


I have uncloaked my face to the light.
Adonai, don't ever let me look back.

The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things

Lines in my hands, light through the walls 
I'm writing letters to you with my prayers 
Long before what I've stood up will fall 
Or who I thought I might be is ensnared 


A man inside a fish, scales from someone's eyes 
A family in a great big boat while the rest of the world dies 


You're making food to feed five thousand 
You're saying "let the children come to me" 
In the corner of the classroom I am pulling back the carpet 
I'm afraid of what I see.


What is truth? What is truth? What is true? 


How big are love and history and what hides inside their mouths? 
There are holes in me from things pushed in when I pull them out 
And out of which come questions that I cannot unwrap 
What I once learned is not enough to hold the torrent back.


I feel as though the weight of questions has grown to cruel to bear 
And though I long to lift it now the load makes me despair 
Ask though I may the faces who once led me by the hand 
Their voices are unfamiliar 
I'm not sure they understand 


And now my spine is bowed by boxes on my back 
I don't know how to open them 
I want to give them back 
And yet you will not stir to ease this burden that I carry 
It seems as though you've piled them up and treated me unfairly 


It's this devastating world that laughs and steals upon my back 
And everything comes crashing down when my will finally cracks 


No longer will I tote the cryptic words of ages gone 
When I was being broken, where were you all along? 
Lessons recounted faithfully now fall like clumps of wool 
The men and women who lied to me are cockeyed, panting wolves 
They wave their flags and cast their stones and sneer with lusty grins 
Commanding me to follow a path they have never believed in 
They low like cattle with bulging veins and militant fists in the air 
Join their flock or burn in hell and I'm not sure that I care


Crawling out from the wreckage of all that I've been taught 
I'm leaving it behind 
They fling their venom out at me when I resign 
Outside the gates I drag myself into a world bigger than I had believed 
And inside they flay their sheep lest they follow me and leave 


But after everything I've done and everything I do 
I can still remember you 


Lines in my hands, light through the walls 
I'm writing you letters with my prayers 
After all that I've stood up falls 
And I afford you none of my cares 
If I ask you "what is truth" will you be silent still? 
My questions and doubts made a chasm 
That I fear you can not fill 


Perhaps the lens I've eyed you through 
Keeps me from knowing what is truth 
I can't find what I'm looking for 
And I still remember you 


When I relent the shackles of all that I've been fed 
I pull back the floor and find something beautiful instead. 


After everything That I've been through 
I don't recognize myself anymore 
Sometimes I think I might remember 
But then I close the door 


I walk away from everything and find myself made free 
In all the tangles of who I am the truth is that you love me 
Just as I was, just as I am, just as I will be 
In all the tangles of who I am, the truth is that you love me! 


--Showbread